Reply #7: what is it that we all don't understand about ... [View All]

"data lacking"?

Myself, I would have quoted the paragraphs from the article that make the actual point being made by the speakers:

The National Research Council said that a major research program on firearms is needed.

... "These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," he said. "The available data are too weak to support strong conclusions."

... The report does not address gun policy itself, only the quality of available research data on firearm violence, control and prevention efforts.

... A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

Not "the quality of any conclusions reached" -- the quality of the data available on which to base ANY conclusions.

Shall we dumb it down a bit?

Let's try to evaluate whether speed limits have an effect on traffic fatalities

- without knowing how many cars are on the roads
- without knowing what speeds people actually drive at
- without knowing how many car crashes there are

Hmm. Think we might have a problem?

Now let's try evaluating whether firearms controls have an effect on, say, firearms fatalities. (We might also consider whether they have an effect on armed robberies, suicides, accidental shootings, emergency room costs ... .)

And let's try doing it

- without knowing how many firearms people own
- without knowing what firearms they own and what they do with them
- without knowing how many people are struck by bullets.

Hmm. Think we might have a problem doing that?


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/injuries.html

Last year <1996>, Congress nearly slashed the budget for the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), which collects and monitors firearm injury data and funds related research as part of its mission. As a result of new funding mandates, CDC this year has been forced to dramatically reduce its firearm-related injury research, and CDC-funded gunshot injury surveillance programs will come to an end in several states.

... Victoria Ozonoff is one of several state gun violence researchers who are losing their CDC funding. As a principal investigator with the Massachusetts' Weapon-Related Injury Surveillance System (WRISS), she helped build one of the nation's first state-wide firearm and weapon injury surveillance programs. With CDC funding, WRISS set up a surveillance program that collects data from hospital emergency rooms, police reports and ballistics records, piecing together the details of shooting deaths and injuries, as well as stabbings. ...

Access to this type of information is crucial for injury prevention programs and Ozonoff says requests for WRISS data come from all sectors of society, from the state attorney general's office worried about cheap handguns used in crimes to educators designing prevention strategies in schools. Even National Rifle Association supporters have used WRISS data to show that knife assaults are more common than gun assaults. WRISS is able to estimate risk levels for residents across the state. "We're using the data to track firearm injuries in a similar way to a range of other health problems, like cancer and food poisoning," Ozonoff says. ...

http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/features/reader/0,2061,567328,00.html
(as usual, if you want to attack the source, have a picnic; I cite it as the first and easiest source I found for the quoted statement by the CDC, and I emphasize)

An independent nonfederal task force assessed 51 published studies that evaluated the effects of firearms laws on violence. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported the task force's findings in the Oct. Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report. Its principal conclusion: "The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes. (Note that insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness should not be interpreted as evidence of ineffectiveness.)"

Well quelle great big fucking surprise.

If you did not have a window to look out of, how would you have enough evidence to determine whether it was raining?

The CDC is effectively prohibited from collecting and analyzing the data that is needed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of firearms control measures (or permissive firearms measures), and then a task force concludes that there is insufficient data to evaluate that effectiveness.

Getting it, anybody? At all?

DATA LACKING.

NOT "there is no data to support XYZ", but "We do not have access to data to confirm or deny XYZ".

I'll bet that if we all think really hard, and maybe even read and think about what was atually said, we can discern the difference.